Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Right-wing extremism has reached a stage where cow vigilantes' atrocities and incidents of lynching have become a regular affair.

Muslims are being targeted, killed by mobs. A teenaged Muslim gets killed in train because mob assumed that because he is a Muslim, he would be consuming beef.

This happened near Delhi. In other parts of India, the law-and-order has deteriorated exactly in the same fashion. Any Muslim can be killed or lynched over a rumour.

A man carrying cow to his home for milk is killed just because he is a Muslim. Another carrying meat is killed because it is believed that the meat would be nothing but beef.

No police complaint, seizure or lab test is required.

This is 21st century India, where Muslims can be killed at will.

When an armyman's father can be killed by a mob after announcement from a temple that his fridge had beef, one could perhaps have an idea about the situation.

Muslims never thought that they who gave their blood for India's freedom, would one day have to go through it.

In UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, everywhere Muslims are being attacked over rumours or suspicion of carrying beef.

Till a couple of years, it would have been unbelievable that lawlessness would take over the country, so fast.

That the state would not be able to control the right-wing lumpens and that the vigilantes would rule the streets.

But this has happened within a few years, a very short time.

The fact is that the right-wing Hindutva extremism had been rearing its head in India since 1980s.

The rise of militant organisations like Bajrang Dal, which openly give arms' training to its cadre, should have woken up the state.

But the authorities remained lenient towards them, even during Congress regimes.

Social media revolution has given it a fillip and took it to next level. After Facebook, it was WhatsApp that was increasingly used to spread propaganda and hate in Indian society.

The result is cow vigilante groups who seem to have the licence to attack or kill anybody. No one knows when the State would act against them. Accuse anyone of smuggling a cow or consuming beef, and then kill the person--it has become so simple.

That's 21st century India.One hates to post such pictures. But there is no other option. One has to post them. After all, this is happening in India each and every day. We must accept that we are one of the most inherently violent societies.

Unless we accept it, we can't make efforts to change it. We must rise, stand for humanity, fight the fascist forces, take on the extremists and save this nation. If we don't do it right now, it may be too late.

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